Stakeholders in the health sector have expressed serious concern over the increasing cases of drug abuse in the country and urged the Federal Government to implement the national drug distribution guidelines to end the menace.

Managing Director of Vanguard Pharmacy, Taofik Oladipupo Odukoya, made the call at the inauguration of a branch of the Vanguard Pharmacy in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.

He said the Federal Government should, therefore, urgently implement the document on national drug distribution guidelines, stressing that it was the only solution to end importation of adulterated products and drug abuse in the country.

He observed that the document was submitted since 2013 so that drug abuse and importation of substandard products could be checkmated in the country but the authorities were yet to approve the document.

“There has been a proposal with the government since 2013. We have been expecting its implementation since then, but they have shifted to 2014 and from 2014, they shifted it to 2016. As of this moment, the Minister of Health has said it would be implemented in 2019.”

Odukoya added that any medication that enters the country, whether locally produced on imported should enter a database. So, from the manufacturer or the importer to the community pharmacy, people could trace the movement of every drug.

He, therefore, argued that once the national drug distribution guidelines is implemented, it would be easier to know those that would use it.

Meanwhile, drugs and other medical consumables worth over N75 million procured for health institutions in Benue State by the past administration have expired and are awaiting destruction by the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

The state Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Mrs. Cecilia Ojabo, who disclosed this in an interview with journalists in her office yesterday, expressed disgust over the huge waste of resources.